The Boyg said, “Go roundabout!”—so one must here.— There fell my fine palace, with crash and clatter! There’s a wall around her whom I stood so near, Of a sudden all’s ugly—my joy has grown old.— Roundabout, lad! There’s no way to be found Right through all this, from where you stand to her. Right through? H’m, surely there should be one. There’s a text on repentance, unless I mistake. But what? What is it? I haven’t the book, I’ve forgotten it mostly, and here there is none That can guide me aright in the pathless wood.— Repentance? And maybe ’twould take whole years Ere I fought my way through. ’Twere a meagre life, that. To shatter what’s radiant, and lovely, and pure, And clinch it together in fragments and shards? You can do it with a fiddle, but not with a bell. Where you’d have the sward green, you must mind not to trample. ’Twas nought but a lie though, that witch-snout business! Now all that foulness is well out of sight.— Ay, out of sight maybe, but not out of mind. Thoughts will sneak stealthily in at my heel. Ingrid! And the three, they that danced on the heights! Will they too want to join us? With vixenish spite Will they claim to be folded, like her, to my breast, To be tenderly lifted on outstretched arms? Roundabout, lad; though my arms were as long As the root of the fir, or the pine-tree’s stem,— I think even then I should hold her too near To set her down pure and untarnished again.— I must roundabout here, then, as best I may, And see that it bring me nor gain nor loss. One must put such things from one, and try to forget.— [_Goes a few steps towards the hut, but stops again._ Go in after this? So befouled and disgraced? Go in with that troll-rabble after me still? Speak, yet be silent; confess, yet conceal——? [_Throws away his axe._ It’s a holy-day evening. For me to keep tryst, Such as now I am, would be sacrilege. SOLVEIG. [_In the doorway._] Are you coming? PEER. [_Half aloud._] Roundabout! SOLVEIG. What? PEER. You must wait. It is dark, and I’ve got something heavy to fetch. SOLVEIG. Wait; I will help you; the burden we’ll share. PEER. No, stay where you are! I must bear it alone. SOLVEIG. But don’t go too far, dear! PEER. Be patient, my girl; Be my way long or short—you must wait.